Kindle Notes & Highlights
I didn’t know whether it was any good, not being a collector of antiques, except unpaid bills.
Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.
“You’re as cold-blooded a beast as I ever met, Marlowe. Or can I call you Phil?”22 “Sure.” “You can call me Vivian.” “Thanks, Mrs. Regan.” “Oh, go to hell, Marlowe.”
I didn’t move. The muzzle of the Luger looked like the mouth of the Second Street tunnel, but I didn’t move.
You’re broke, eh?” “I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.”
“Two coffees,” I said. “Black, strong and made this year.”13
A yellow window shone here and there, but most of the houses were dark. A smell of kelp came in off the water and lay on the fog. The tires sang on the moist concrete of the boulevard. The world was a wet emptiness.
Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness.25
I went out to the kitchenette and drank two cups of black coffee. You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women. Women made me sick.
What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now.
